CHAPTER XXXII

A POSSIBLE COMPLICATION

ONCE more at her open window, gazing, not at dim fell-outlines against a starry sky, but into the darkness of a Midland garden, with ancestral trees under a clouded heaven, knelt Phyllys.

Another thought had come, another suggestion, touching her more acutely than the first.

That earlier flash of light on Mrs. Keith's past, lurid in aspect, had been a weight upon her spirits, the supposition burdening her with a fear lest one day it might be her duty to speak out. Still, she was with Giles; she was sure of his love; she felt confidence in his rectitude; she knew that, whatever might happen, he was dependable. Nothing, she had told herself, could shake that security.

And she had not dreamt of this new doubt.

The other suspicion had struck at the root of much in her future; but it had not affected her relations with Giles, had not threatened her happiness. This, if true, would sweep away the foundations of all that made for earthly joy.

If Giles went, everything went.

Hitherto no thought of blame to him had occurred. He was the unconscious partner in another's evil deed; no less ignorant than the rest of the world. Provisionally she had condemned one person, hoping that her conjecture was mistaken; seeking for extenuating circumstances should the conjecture prove true.

But if Giles were implicated, if for years "he" had acquiesced, there could be for him no extenuating circumstances.

Recalling her chat with Colin, she glanced to an earlier conversation with Giles, and words recurred spoken of Colin:—

"He and Mrs. Keith talk as if Colin were a poor man, dependent on Art. It is not so, really. What belongs to me belongs to him. What is mine is his . . . You mistake my meaning. It is a matter of simple duty . . . Years ago I made up my mind that, whatever he might wish, he should have it—even though it might cost me—might cost me—You would not think so if you knew everything! I owe to Colin all—more than I can ever repay."

He had spoken this earnestly—from his heart. And Colin could say he had been talking nonsense.

Then the new conjecture came, dagger-like—

"'Did Giles know?'"

Colin did not. No such suspicion had occurred to him. But was Giles in ignorance?

"What belongs to me belongs to him! What is mine is his! . . . If you knew everything! . . . I owe to Colin more than I can ever repay!"

Some boyish escapade to win words like these from a man of Giles' stamp! The explanation would not hold water. Another lay only too ready. Colin could make the assertion in all honesty; but Phyllys knew that Giles had not talked nonsense, had not alluded to some boyish folly. He had meant every word. He had not intended her to understand; but she did understand. She saw the whole, with daylight clearness.

She laid her face on the window-sill, clutching it in her distress. "Giles, you too untrue!" she whispered, and scalding tears fell.

Then the thought of her own future; the all but certainty that he would ask her to be his wife. How could she? Marry a man whose life was a lie, whose career had been one long fraud, who for years had connived at that which stabbed the very soul of honour, nay, of common honesty!

"If" things were so! But it might be a mistake. His words might bear some different interpretation. Even though her first surmise should prove correct, "he" might have had no hand in it, "he" might be innocent. She resolved that, without ample proof, she would hold him incapable of such conduct. She would wait for further light; but she would not allow him to propose until she knew.

She would have to go home. She could not stay here, in hourly intercourse, loving and knowing herself beloved, unable to meet his advances. It would be hard to go, but from every point of view it would be safer.

With her early cup of tea was brought a letter from Barbara, the opening sentences of which read like a response to her resolution. Mrs. Wyverne disapproved of Phyllys being at Castle Hill without leave.

"If you care to know what I think, I say you ought to come back at once," tartly wrote Barbara. "You ought to consider grandmother's feelings. She looks quite worried, and we shall have her ill, at this rate."

The sharp words glanced aside, scarcely heeded. Phyllys welcomed the letter as helping her out of difficulty. At any cost—and the cost would be severe—she felt that she must put off giving Giles a decisive answer. She must allow no chance for a private talk. In view of Barbara's former telegram, she could not feel anxious; but the words would serve as a plea. To her dismay there was a postscript—

"After all, you can't come at present. Ben Lane is ill with scarlet fever, and Grannie will not hear of having you. So we must wait."

This made a complication. Phyllys went down to breakfast, pale, "distraite," unlike herself.

Afterwards she wrote an impulsive note to Mr. Hazel, asking him to bring about her recall.

"Don't tell anybody, please," she begged, "only if you could have me telegraphed for, it would be best. They are so kind here; still, just now I ought to get away, and I can't tell you why. Please help me."

She ran with the note herself, to catch an early post, and wondered whether she had asked her kind old friend to do a thing impossible.

"Good morning," aroused her from a dream, and she found herself looking at Colin. "Giles was hunting for you. He is called off for the day on business—awful nuisance for him. Would you like to see the cast of your head? You've not been to my studio yet."

She laughed. "Considering that you came home last night—"

"I forgot. Come now, if you have nothing better to do."

Phyllys complied, relieved to hear that Giles was out of reach. Anything to gain time.

The bust was on a pedestal, near that of Elsye, side by side with that of Giles. Phyllys noted the latter fact. She stood gazing at the successful reproduction of her own pretty outlines.

"Grannie would love to see it some day."

"You like it?"

"Yes. Didn't I say so? But I'm no judge."

"Some day if you will sit to me again, I'll do another for Mrs. Wyverne."

"Like this?"

"Too much to ask! It might be better—or worse."

"You could not make a copy, I suppose?"

"I'm no good at copying."

"And if you took me a third and fourth time—they would all be different."

"Yes. If you sat to a class of students, and a dozen heads were modelled, no two would be the same. Taken from the same Phyllys, at the same time, under the same conditions—several might be good likenesses, yet all would differ."

"Curious," she murmured.

"Each modeller sees with different eyes—according to his own capacity for seeing, and his own mental make. What we see is always in part a reflection of what we are in ourselves. A dozen artists copying you would see each a different Phyllys—all to some extent the true Phyllys, but no two the same. The Phyllys that I see is not the Phyllys that Giles sees. The Giles whom I see is not the Giles whom you see."

He was interesting her with his old power; and his words sent her in recollection to a chat with the old Vicar of Midfell.

"It's like the light on different surfaces," she murmured; and a word from Colin drew a fuller statement.

"That is just it." He grasped the thought instantly. "Different surfaces give forth what they are able to receive—what, in common language, they can 'see.'"

"Then, what one 'sees' one seems to others."

"That practically is the outcome."

"And people blame one another for not seeing more."

"Whence sprang the persecutions of the Middle Ages. The soil was for ever trying to smother the water, and the water to drown the grass."

"We don't persecute now."

"No. Modern martyrdom with us is a sorry armchair business. But we belabour one another with hard words—for not being able all to see Divine Light in the same fashion."

"'You' don't say hard words of others, even when you don't think like them."

He smiled, and murmured—

"Shall one like me— Judge hearts—like yours?"

The response in her face made him turn to a table and open a small book, pointing to the page. She read—

"Time was when I believed that wrong In other to detect Was part of genius all a gift, To cherish, not reject; Now better taught by Thee, O Lord, This truth dawns on my mind, The beet effects of Heavenly Light Is—Earth's false eyes to blind."

She murmured, "Ah!" Colin's quotations always seemed to be just the right thing.